page_title: Valmontone
section_title: Main sights
hierarchical_section_title: Valmontone / Main sights
caption_attribution_description: Collegiata, Valmontone
context_page_description: Valmontone is a comune in the Metropolitan City of Rome in the Italian region Lazio, located about 45 kilometres southeast of Rome.
context_section_description: Palazzo Doria-Pamphilj was originally a fortified castle, until the Barberini decided to replace it with a bigger fortress. When Camillo Pamphilj bought the fief, he wanted to create a sort of “ideal city”, a Città Panfilia (Pamphiljan Town), including the palace, the nearby church and the other buildings (stables, warehouses, house, etc.): for this reason he called in Valmontone many important artists. On the Piano Nobile (the second floor) are frescoes divided by themes: the four rooms of Elements, the four dedicated to the Continents (Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia), the Sala del Principe and two chapels. The ceiling frescoes were made between 1657 and the 1661 by Pier Francesco Mola, Gaspard Dughet, Guglielmo Cortese,  Francesco Cozza and Mattia Preti.
  Valmontone Archeological Museum, situated in the Palazzo Doria-Pamphilj. The ground floor houses a section which introduces the municipal area, the upper floor offers an introduction to the archeological sites and to related topics, through several media. Such topics include the coal miners' village in Colle Carbone, the "Colle dei Lepri" settlement, the "Mansio", the Thermal Baths and the "Colle Pelliccione" furnace.
  Collegiate Church of Santa Maria dell'Assunta, built on an ancient Gothic church (12th century) with the same name, under Camillo Pamphilj, in the 17th century. The architect was Mattia de Rossi, who rose to prominence under the mentorship of  Gian Lorenzo Bernini: however, de Rossi was for this structure inspired by Borromini's design for the Roman church of Sant'Agnese in Agone. The church has a façade composed by two bell towers and a curved colonnade with four Ionic columns. The plan is elliptic, with four chapels along each side, including numerous Baroque pictures; in front of the main entrance, between two other chapels, is the apse with the altar.
  Fontana del Colle, in Baroque style, is part of the original Prince Pamphilj project. It is composed by a pedestal with four round-shaped basins, one at each angle, decorated with lions heads. On the pedestal is a column surmounted by the bronze statue of the Labicanus, a Roman warrior, symbol of Valmontone. This fountain was completely destroyed under the World War II bombings, except one of the basins and the pedestal: the structure was rebuilt in 1968.
  The Church of Sant'Antonio was not bombed during World War II, and is the last medieval building of Valmontone. The real name of the church is Santa Maria delle Grazie and was erected in the 9th century: the construction is made with blocks of tuff, with two closed windows, one of them decorated with a little arch. The interior is decorated with Baroque stuccoes, a Madonna with the Son and a Sant'Antonio Abate, both painted by anonymous.
  Colle Sant'Angelo hill houses the cemetery of Valmontone and the convent of Sant’Angelo: built on the ruins of a Roman sanctuary, it was also nearly destroyed during the last war, and rebuilt immediately. It was erected in the 8th century by the Benedictine Order, and includes some remains of the old monastery in the cloister and in the refectory: two bells, one of them of 1523, the other of 1744, are visible in the cloister.
  Sanctuary of Madonna del Gonfalone: this church was built in 1508, with a Gothic plan, out of the old town's walls. In origin, the sanctuary had 15 altars. Destroyed during World War II, it was rebuilt in the 1950s and the only original part is the renaissance’s portal with the pediment. The interior maintains as original the apsidal zone, with the main altar, and a fresco (1514) of the Virgin who nurses Jesus.
  Fortified wall's gates: before World War II Valmontone was home to three gates, though one of them, Porta Romana, in Renaissance style, was completely destroyed. The other two are Porta Napoletana and Porta Nuova: the first one was a medieval fortified gate, with two massive towers on sides, partially visible nowadays. The other one was erected on the Via Nuova by Camillo Pamphilj, in baroque style, as a gate on the road to the central town square on the hilltop.
  Not far from Valmontone i
caption: Colleggiata church.
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